


Thermodon

by maelidify



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Breast cancer, College AU, F/M, Surgery, drabble kinda, they are young in this and also not in outer space and also in college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 17:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11040969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maelidify/pseuds/maelidify
Summary: She knew she had to schedule the follow up reconstruction surgery, but left the thought on a proverbial sticky-note in the corner of her brain, unwilling to face the exhaustion that the first medical ordeal had left her with. She’d find herself thinking that she should be stronger than that. The proverbial sticky note was bright yellow but untouched. So was she, in a way.





	Thermodon

Laura Roslin was one to evaluate her losses, mourn, and move on. It was her system, but perhaps it wasn’t as foolproof as assumed.

The recovery was much the same as she’d expect from any surgery. It was the summertime. She took time off from work, but not too much time. She let herself get rest, but not too much rest. She knew she had to schedule the follow up reconstruction surgery, but left the thought on a proverbial sticky-note in the corner of her brain, unwilling to face the exhaustion that the first medical ordeal had left her with. She’d find herself thinking that she should be stronger than that. The proverbial sticky note was bright yellow but untouched.

So was she, in a way.

Bill had been handling her with kid gloves, so to speak, and with short words paired with sappy expressions. She read him like a book, the relief, the reluctance. He didn’t want to harm her or act too invasively. So he kissed her chastely when they met up for their morning coffee every day, and told her about the frustrating internship he was undergoing at the publishing company, and squeezed her fingers too hard, letting go of them too quickly. This last action happened almost three times a day and eventually she was tired of the ducking and running.

She was curled up on his couch and he was going over a manuscript while she tried to focus on Thucydides. Eventually she sighed and dog-eared a corner of the worn volume, sitting up.  

“I still have  _ one _ , you know.”

The words hung in the air and he looked up sharply over his papers to see her leaning against the side of the couch. She tried to neutralize her expression as she looked at him, which she knew he hated.

He swallowed. “I—“

“Don’t care, I know.” He hadn’t said as much but he didn’t have to. “But you haven’t touched me once since I recovered.”

“Didn’t know I could.” He set his papers aside now, standing up and crossing to her. She didn’t stand to face him and wondered if that meant she was tired, that he thought she was tired.  
  
“I’m not gonna break, you know.” She cracked a smile. “The other one isn’t gonna fall off. Well, not yet anyway.”

“I wanted to give you a break,” he explained, sitting beside her, evening the playing field. She appreciated it and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Didn’t know if you’d be up for anything so soon.”

She hummed. “Fair enough. You could have asked.”

“Fair enough,” he echoed. She saw him glance over his shoulder at his papers and back at her again. It was getting late and he had to go into the company in the morning. Normally, she’d be leaving. Normally, she’d be leaving after quite a bit of fooling around. Their pre-surgery sex life suddenly flashed before her eyes and she laughed at the idea of something flashing before her eyes, because it alluded to death and she’d prevented death before it could sink its claws into her like it had her mother. Of course it could always appear in the other one but she had her eyes on it now, would strike at the smallest attack.

“What?” he said at her laugh.

“Nothing. I just feel powerful,” she admitted, and kissed him deeply before pulling away, a little embarrassed. Was she hornier than he was? It wasn’t a concept she was used to.

Before she could consider how to broach that subject, he ran a hand down her collarbones, exposed by her loose-fitting teeshirt, down to the flattened area left of her breast. “Show me,” he said, and it was almost a command. She grinned and slowly peeled the shirt off, removing the odd-fitting bra as well.

She didn’t look down. She stared straight at him as his blue eyes evaluated something in her own eyes and then lowered. She knew what they saw; a long stark row of stitches nestled through patches of soured skin, yellowed against the rest of her pallor. The bruises would fade eventually, and the reconstruction she had yet to undergo would do something about the harsh flatness of the scar. She would be worried about the current asymmetry but she knew how much familial loss her lover had experienced in his meager decades. He had been the first to support her decision.

Bill looked back at her and she nodded her permission. His hand lowered, the forefinger running along the scar almost reverently, thumbnail inadvertently tracing the side of her one breast.

His hand was cool and the feeling on her skin was almost relief, almost like the cleansing of water. The tumor had been discovered early and had put the fear of God into her, of course, but she had never truly feared for her life. Perhaps it was the arrogance of youth or perhaps it was because she’d been too distracted with her studies at the time, but death hadn’t occurred to her as a path, as much as she’d made her decisions based upon avoiding it.

But with his finger on the scar and his forehead touching hers, suddenly, intensely, she could imagine a different path. A life in which the disease festered inside her and destroyed her from the inside out. A life in which she grew weaker each day and watched Bill grow weaker as well because of it. She frowned against this revelation, her hand tangling in his short dark hair. The revelation was sudden; Laura couldn’t imagine a future, any future, that didn’t have this man in it.

She could imagine dying but she couldn’t imagine life without Bill Adama.

He had shifted to running his thumb over it, the touches paper-light, and he bestowed a light, smiling kiss to her lips. Then he laughed.

“What?” she said. 

“You can be an Amazon now,” he said, referring to the mythology class in which they’d first met. But there were tears in his eyes and she’d never seen that before, and it broke her heart while simultaneously feeding something in her, something vital and emotive.

She meant to say  _ wrong side, Bill _ . “I love you,” she found herself saying instead. The words were raw.  

He took her hand in his own and she laid it flat upon the scar, and he smiled broadly in response as they felt the thump of her heart between them. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
>  So I wrote this a while ago and never posted it on this thing we call the internet. I like it, though.


End file.
